Me- " **standard agency greeting**"
(Cube Rat A and Cube Rat B in conference call) Yes Rankin, this is Cube Rat A here with Cube Rat B and we are looking at your survey (signed record set) and we see that you have L2 annotated on a line on your survey but we don't see any line table. We think we'll need to send this back to you for corrections and you can get new signatures.
me- "ok- let me open that up and look at it. It should be right there." (I'm thinking "did I have that level shut off when I printed?")
* clickity-click click clickity click- bing bing click bing*
Me- "well I see L1 on the left of the parcel and L2,3, & 4 on the right side of the parcel- are those not printed on the survey?"
Cube rats (In unison) oh there they are!! We just spotted them! ok this will be fine... have a good day!
me- "you too..... ":-/
Earlier conversation between Cube Rat A and Cube Rat B.
Cube Rat B (yelling over cube wall)--Hey! What does L2 spell?
Cube Rat A (yelling back)--What?
Cube Rat B --I'm looking at this humongous survey plat from Rankin and on one line all it says is "L2". Is that some sort of secret code?
Cube Rat A--Nah! That means he wrote what it really means somewhere else. Do you see that?
Cube Rat B--I don't see anything.
Cube Rate A--Get Rankin on a conference call and we'll make him fix it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the normal extent of the effort made by others to grasp what we have clearly presented to them. Then, instead of it being their problem, they can transfer the problem to us. Ain't instant access via phone or internet a wonderful thing? In the old days they would have studied the plat thoroughly before calling in the secretary to take down a letter in shorthand for her to type later and then be sent out the next day after they had reviewed her work and had her make a couple of changes to the letter. A week later they would have received your return letter explaining that they need to look about two inches to the right of the north arrow to see a big box with the heading, "Line Table".
It's so bad that I received this call from a client a few years ago:
Client: "I just got this envelope in the mail from you."
Me: "Yes?"
Client: "So....what's in it?"
Anthrax....I wasn't going to tell you, but since you asked.....
I can appreciate this. I just had my first (and second) certified plat turn ins to the city today. I dealt with this same level of give a crap and that same mentality. I got it all done and turned in on time, but I think I have PTSD now.